Catie Meighan felt some trepidation last fall when, as a seventh-grader, she entered the tennis season as a starter for Bluffton High School.

One year later, Meighan is entrenched as the Bobcats’ No. 1 singles player. Facing older players is no longer a novelty.

“When I started moving up, I was a little nervous,” Meighan said. “But now I’m fine because it makes me want to beat the older people.”

Meighan will get a chance to beat the top players in South Carolina on Friday, when she competes in the SCHSL state singles tournament at the Cayce Tennis Center. She is the third Bluffton girls player to be selected to the tournament in nine years, and the first to do it as an eighth-grader.

The tournament’s selection committee put Meighan in the field last week as an “at large” selection. She finished the season with a 14-5 record and helped the Bobcats reach the second round of the Class AAAA tournament, matching the best showing in program history.

Meighan is currently ranked 14th in the state in her age group. She also has a sectional ranking of around 100 and a national ranking of around 300, Bluffton coach Bob Brown said.

A top-eight finish in the tournament’s main draw or a top-four finish in the consolation draw would make her Bluffton’s first all-state player.

“In spite of her tender age, she needed to be in that tournament,” Brown said. “She’s one of the best players in South Carolina.”

About two years after she took up the sport, Meighan said, she began attending the Smith Stearns Tennis Academy on Hilton Head Island and playing competitively. When she reached the seventh grade, she earned a spot playing No. 4 singles on a veteran Bluffton High team.

“She’s our hardest-working tennis player. She’s the real deal,” Brown said. “Nobody works harder in tennis than she does — in the boys and the girls programs put together.”

Heavy losses to graduation opened up the team’s No. 1 singles spot this fall and Meighan gained valuable experience playing each opponent’s top player, often an upperclassman.

“It kind of surprised me, but at the same time it didn’t because I practice a lot every day,” she said. “I tried my best to be No. 1, and I got there.”

Brown said his eighth-grader more than held her own against much older — and bigger — competition. Her losses came against Beaufort senior Charlotte Bellomy, who will join her at the state tournament, SCISA power Hilton Head Prep and state semifinalist Dutch Fork in the playoffs.

“A lot of times in high school tennis, you’ll get a 17-year-old girl that will just inflict her will on a little girl, and (Meighan) doesn’t buckle.” Brown said. “Nothing surprises her. She never has a big emotional roller coaster like so many of us have. She’s really a little pro.”